“It felt like my son had died”: Zero tolerance and the trauma of family separation

Gil-García, Óscar F.; Bové, Francesca; Velazquez, Luz; Vener, Sarah; Miranda, Alexandra

doi:10.1057/s41276-021-00314-7

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Trump administration policies expedited the criminal prosecution of unauthorized migrants and subjected many asylum seekers to family separations, which often ripped children from their parents who faced mandatory detention and deportation (Muñiz de la Pena et al 2019;Gil-García et al 2021). Further, in 2019, the Trump administration initiated the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), which requires asylum seekers to remain in Mexico to await their asylum hearing in a US immigration court (DHS 2019); recent studies have found that this policy further exposes asylum seekers to violence (AI 2021).…”

Section: Cross-border Mobilities In the Twenty-first Centurymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this section, we apply a relational socio-cultural analytic to synthesize settler colonial theory and the theory of racialized legal status to examine how race-based statelessness (Blake 2017) shapes the lived experiences of Indigenous Maya. We focus on the case of David, a US citizen minor of Indigenous Maya descent with non-citizen parents who faced family separation after a 2017 attempt to cross the US-Mexico border (Gil- García et al 2021). First, we outline David's history of family separation.…”

Section: Synthesizing Settler Colonial Theory and The Theory Of Racia...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Despite these occasional conversations, David's placement in the foster care system exacerbated the trauma of his family separation, resulting in psychosomatic symptoms such as sleeplessness, loss of appetite, and depression (Gil-García et al 2021). The health effects David experienced are indicative of the broader harm caused by forced separations.…”

Section: Application Of a Relational Socio-cultural Analytic Lensmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, David is part of the larger Indigenous Maya diaspora that, as Casanova et al ( 2016) argued, has nurtured cultural and linguistic forms that not only predate the formation of nation-states in the Americas, but also continue to constitute contemporary transnational cartographies of resistance to state hegemony (Magaña 2020;Way 2021). For example, David continued to use the Akatek language to speak with his parents, who lived in Mexico following the family's separation (Gil-García et al 2021). Their use of Maya Akatek illustrates their unwillingness to conform to hegemonic Eurocentric cultural notions of the "appropriate" language(s) spoken in each nation-state setting.…”

Section: Application Of a Relational Socio-cultural Analytic Lensmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Understanding the Mobilities of Indigenous Migrant Youth across the Americas

Gil-García,

Akalin,

Bové

et al. 2024

Social Sciences

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Enhanced immigration enforcement measures are now a dominant practice throughout the world. The concept of transnationalism, used by scholars to illuminate the complex dynamics these measures have across nation-state borders, has been critiqued for its replication of methodological nationalism—the assumption that the nation-state is a natural social and political form of the modern world. How then can migration scholars deepen the understanding of the mobilities of migrant children and youth without replicating methodological nationalism? We propose a relational socio-cultural analytic that synthesizes settler colonial theory and the theory of racialized legal status to comprehend the complex experiences of Indigenous migrant Maya youth and families throughout the Americas. Our use of a relational critical comparative analysis challenges structural functionalist approaches that limit the study migration dynamics within nation-state contexts, which can unwittingly sustain national membership in a state(s) as an aspirational emblem of belonging. We explore how Indigenous Maya experience and challenge the meaning of statelessness and the spillover effects of immigration enforcement measures along the US–Mexico and Mexico–Guatemala borders. We argue that a relational socio-cultural analytic lens serves as a powerful tool for understanding how nation-states co-produce stateless Indigenous populations and how these populations persist throughout the Americas and the world.

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Section: Cross-border Mobilities In the Twenty-first Centurymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Synthesizing Settler Colonial Theory and The Theory Of Racia...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Application Of a Relational Socio-cultural Analytic Lensmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Application Of a Relational Socio-cultural Analytic Lensmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Understanding the Mobilities of Indigenous Migrant Youth across the Americas

Gil-García,

Akalin,

Bové

et al. 2024

Social Sciences

Self Cite

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“…Nowadays, even untrained lay people understand that grave psychological injuries can be sustained by children without experiencing any physical injuries. This is evidenced by the tremendous outcry over the “zero tolerance” policy of separating migrant children from their parents (Gil‐García et al., 2021). Those children generally suffered no physical injuries, yet the terrible psychological toll inflicted upon them is well understood by most people.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Women's rights and child abductions under the Hague Convention

Shaknes,

Stringer,

Brandt

2023

Appl Psychoanal Studies

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The Hague Convention on Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction is a multinational treaty designed to protect children internationally from the harmful effects of parental abduction. The Convention requires a mandatory return of a child who was wrongfully removed or retained outside the country of her habitual residence unless a narrow defense preventing return can be proven. When drafted, it was assumed that most abductors would be non‐custodial parents disappointed by an adverse custody decision in the home country. It is now clear that women have been disproportionately affected because in many, if not most, U.S. cases, the respondents, that is, the parents accused of the abduction, are the children's primary caregivers. When the child's home country is not willing or capable of protecting the mother and the child, they are forced to flee from often near‐lethal danger. Therefore, many cases brought under the Hague Convention involve severe domestic violence. The Hague Convention allows courts to deny the return if it would expose the child to a “grave risk of physical or psychological harm.” Nonetheless, a limited judicial understanding of domestic violence, coupled with societal gender biases, has impeded the application of this defense. Several recent developments discussed in this essay reflect a growing understanding of the lasting traumatic impact of domestic violence on these child victims.

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Central American diasporas

Flores¹

2023

Psychosocial Experiences and Adjustment of Migrants

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“It felt like my son had died”: Zero tolerance and the trauma of family separation

Cited by 5 publications

References 15 publications

Understanding the Mobilities of Indigenous Migrant Youth across the Americas

Understanding the Mobilities of Indigenous Migrant Youth across the Americas

Women's rights and child abductions under the Hague Convention

Central American diasporas

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